‘GOD THIS IS HARD!!!’

That has been me to God a lot lately. But God has such a great sense of humor because, in one of my appointments with Him, He took me back to this old post from January when I sent this text to my daughters after running for two and a half miles to Starbucks:

“Made it. Let’s do HARD THINGS this year for God.”

And now that the hard things are here for me to do, I’m like, ‘God, what is this?!? I didn’t want it to be this hard!’ LOL! But, I love how I have this relationship with Him where we can have fun with each other. I say no problem, God, when the going gets tough, the tough (ME!!!) gets going. I got this handled! I know that this difficult and sometimes overwhelming stuff I have to deal with is God’s way of challenging me to be better, training me as an athlete to be stronger (mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally). God, let’s do this! I’m a soldier in God’s army, baby!

I know I will come through it happier, more mature, more disciplined, more focused, and more at peace. You can’t beat God’s school of HARD LESSONS! It’s a constant struggle and a strong fight to be this person who I know He is calling me to be, but that’s the challenge for us all: For God to be or Guide of our hearts and to make some super tough decisions from His GOD IS LOVE perspective. He wants to remove the weeds from our hearts like bitterness, envy, jealousy, hate, greed, selfishness, temptations, evil thoughts, anger, doing and saying hurtful things and replace them with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience bearing with and forgiving each other, clothing ourselves ALWAYS in love. Phew! Did you get all of that?

SUPER HARD, I KNOW!!! But that’s where the PRACTICE, PRACTICE, and more PRACTICE comes in. Looking to God in every moment and seeking to please Him. With all the training from Him, we’ll have a heart and mind filled with His love, joy, and Presence knowing He is our intimate life Partner and Guide.

Everything is between God and us, not between us and anyone else – His BLESSINGS amaze me. A strong run today with my daughters had me going crazy over His love. Those who hope in God will not be disappointed! AMEN!!! Hard stuff here, but we can do all things through Him who strengthens us! Amen.

WEROLLWITHGOD.COM

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HEALTH MATTERS
This 46 year old here is competing with her 16 and 17 year old daughters in interval speed runs and I’m again giving God the glory in nudging me to give up the sweets lately, incorporating small meat and chicken again in my diet (I was becoming malnourished without them!) and the fasting that I feel is giving my body a chance to rest and regroup. Woohoo! God is involved in every aspect of our lives!!!

LET FOOD BE THY MEDICINE AND MEDICINE THY FOOD

I’M EMBARRASSED TO TALK ABOUT THIS

For someone who claims to be a God maniac preaching about love and forgiveness all the time, I’ve been heavily burdened lately with bitterness from something that happened over a month ago. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I keep asking myself. But the truth of the matter is, I’m human. And I’ve been praying for God to help me with it, and He sent someone: Devon Franklin, who put it down like this for me after he held onto resentments about his mother:

“I had to let go because I can’t go back in the past to fix it. IT IS THE WAY IT IS. Some of us have been holding on to something that can’t be fixed. It happened. I wish I can tell you that there is a magic wand to take it out of your past or your story. But somebody you trusted let you down. God sent you here to this service today because he is trying to take you to a new place in 2019, but if you bring the resentments that you’ve been carrying around this year into next year, its going to weigh you down. So, God wants you to make peace with the person you feel didn’t meet your expectation, AND GOD IS ASKING ME TO ASK YOU TO FORGIVE THEM. I pray that as you release this, you will feel freedom.”

I’m talking a direct message from God to the crazy lady over here. Hearing that “God is asking me to ask you to forgive them,” I knew it was definitely a message from my Big Boss. See how intimately God is involved in our lives. He always has the perfect people ready to help me whenever I need help. This sermon was recorded at the end of 2018, but God knew I would need it right now.

Devon wished everyone a Happy New Year, and I’m claiming that for us all today. That we can all forgive anyone who has disappointed us and begin again. A fresh start of our lives handing all the bitterness, hurts, resentments, anger, disappointments, and pain over to God. He has great plans for us, but first we must let go of our little expectations and focus on God, who has HUGE expectations for us. I look at my life in amazement, sometimes asking, “How did I get here?’ And the answer is no doubt God. He can do more than we can ever ask or imagine when we stick with Him, being FAITHFUL to what He asks of us. He has exceeded my expectations in every aspect of my life.

I told y’all, God is pretty talkative when you have ears to hear Him. He nudged me to begin the fasting and He nudged me to watch Devon on YouTube and I paid attention. I want us all getting closer to God and hearing what He has to say to us. That may mean waking up a little earlier every day and having appointments with God asking Him to be our Guide and Partner. To enjoy the happy moments with as well as to help us with our struggles. Can you commit with me that we will make God a priority making a relationship with Him the most important aspect of our lives? He has great plans for us, but if we do not hear His voice, we miss out on His grand plans. Check out Devon’s Franklin’s channel on YouTube, he has lots of great advice for EVERYONE.

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FEELING SKINTIGHT WITH GOD, BABY!

That’s what this fasting with the Muslims is doing for me – I’m feeling so close to Him! Like yesterday, I accidentally ran out with my daughter’s air pods in my ears. And instead of listening to music like I usually do, I decided to listen to Rich Roll’s latest podcast. I had a few errands to run, one being grocery shopping. Unbelievably, AS I WALKED DOWN A GROCERY AISLE, continuing to listen to Rich Roll through my daughter’s earphones, Rich says something like, “I WAS WALKING DOWN THE AISLE OF A GROCERY STORE (Wink! Wink!).

And this was another one of my God winks, where out of the blue, everything lines up a little bit too perfect to be a regular coincident. It was God Himself saying, ‘Nikki, MY PRESENCE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU. I SEE YOU.’

I thought about where I started listening to the podcast, from where I had last left off, where I was when I decided to switch off the music, to the EXTRA LONG line at the bank, to every traffic light I stopped at, every phone call I took and the perfect timing of every one of those calls, TO GET ME WALKING THROUGH THE AISLE OF THAT GROCERY STORE AS RICH SAID “I WAS WALKING DOWN THE AISLE OF A GROCERY STORE. I’m talking timing to perfection, just to let His girl here (and hopefully you too that He is with us all. I’m only the God maniac here paying attention and reporting them to back to you. (SMILE)

I want the title of my next book to be, ‘Let God Be The One To Love You.’ That God wink saying, ‘Nik,I see you,’ meant the world to me yesterday. Human love is fickle and unsteady, but God’s love is constant and unfailing. Even when He corrects us, it’s with such love. Like this message from Devon Franklin was God correcting me this week after I’ve been extremely distracted with my focus on the wrong things:

“The more FOCUS, the more FOLLOW THROUGH, the more FAVOR, the more SUCCESS. The more DISTRACTIONS, the more DETOURS, the more DEPRESSION, the more ANXIETY. In order for us to be who God has called us to be and do what He has called us to do, it requires FOCUS. We really have to start looking at our environment as to what is distracting us from being all He is calling us to be. Ask, “Lord, what is eating up my time?”

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…” – Hebrews 12:1

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“CRUSHING LIFE WITH GOD, BABY”

That was me on my morning run with Him. I was happy, dancing, singing, and thanking God for helping to get rid of the negative cloud that has been following your girl here around. No shame in my game, I cried out to God, ‘HELP ME!’ and as usual, He showed up, and it is another awesome testimony about God’s great love for us.

I got a feeling from Him to Watch Devon Franklin’s YouTube Bible study a couple of days ago. I watched it as if God was having a personal discussion with me alone. Devon perfectly articulated what I’ve been going, though: My heart was crushed into a million pieces, y’all. Which explained so many issues I had going on like the constant eating and running to sweets. The sadness, frustration, and stress of it pushed me to food as a relief valve to let out the steam. He also said something like you’re not getting your not work done. This was after I kept asking myself, ‘Nik, what is wrong with you?’ after I can’t seem to get a project completed. But, Devon reminded that God was close to the brokenhearted and He has a plan to rescue us when we cry out to Him.

That plan included fasting with the Muslims for Ramadan to stop all the constant, constant eating. Instead of running to food, I ran to God and had appointments with Him. Reading a lot of what the old Nikki had to say on my website, werollwithgod.com was great therapy. Even when I’ve been asking God to give up the posts and videos while I catch myself, He took me to a direct post that said the work for Him was to continue. ‘No problem, you’re the Boss!!’ But seeing such a specific response to my question made me feel so close to Him.

I also felt God nudging me to include a “NO SWEETS” rule along with the fasting. Even when the girls flaunted freshly baked cake in my face, I said, “No!!!” I know that’s one of my downfalls. I wouldn’t have a piece of cake, I would want the entire cake, and this fasting was about me going away from the old ways of sad and depressed Nikki and back to my joyful self.

Another story Devon told was about a potter and how he doesn’t just throw away a pot because its marred (damaged). That he would remake it into something else despite its faults. He said that’s what God does for us. No matter how many times we mess up, God doesn’t throw us out or give up on us. He keeps working with us, using everything, including our failings, to help us become the people He designed us to be. Not only is God still working on me, He is working on us all. I felt that was God’s message to me to go the extra mile in love (no judging other people’s sins), forgiveness, and patience because we all have issues He is working on. Again, ‘OK, Boss! Anything to please You.’ Fall one million times; Get up a million and one times with God.

WEROLLWITHGOD.COM